[Xastir] Garmin Rino being dropped?

[Jason Winningham]

On Aug 10, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Jim Tolbert wrote:

> What is the status of the new generation of trackers ( Tracker2, I  
> think?).  As I understand, the innovation is that they are  
> digipeaters as well.  Correct?

Scott has a couple.  The T2, currently in beta, seems to be very near  
production status.  It is a full-up TNC with digpeat capability, has  
a tracker in it, and can plot received stations on a mapping GPS.   
The OT+ does some decoding in software.  It's not as good at decode  
as the T2, but it's better than nothing.

Byon has some new TinyTrack stuff (the TT4 sounds comparable to the OT 
+, IIRC), but I don't know much about them.  Byon's stuff is all  
closed source.  Scott's OpenTracker series is open source, so Scott  
gets my money.

> For SAR GPS tracking, on each field searcher, we would still need a  
> radio, a tracker, and a mapping GPS.  Is that correct?

That depends on your needs.  If all you need is for someone at the  
ICP to know where the teams are, you can get by with a dumb tracker  
(radio/tracker/GPS engine).  If you want the teams to know where the  
other teams and other resources are, they'll need decode and mapping  
capability (D7 or Tracker 2 and mapping GPS).

> Is there any company that anyone knows of that is working on a unit  
> with the radio/gps/tracker that will work on the APRS network --  
> aka, a Rino for Ham?

Nothing I've heard of.

-Jason
kg4wsv